By: Monique Merrill
The iconic shower scene from “Psycho” only lasts a few minutes but took a full week of production to shoot. This and hundreds of other shower-scene trivia can be found in the documentary “78/52,” playing at the Limelight Theater currently.
This Doctober movie spends a whopping 91 minutes on “Psycho’s” shower scene. I must say, it might have been a little excessive. Perhaps it’s my appreciation of “Psycho” that needs work, but it’s definitely not the best sign when your movie-watching partner falls asleep multiple times during the matinee screening of the documentary.
Don’t get me wrong, “78/52” has some fun parts. Elijah Wood is inexplicably featured among the assortment of celebrities interviewed. I discovered Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of Janet Leigh, the famously stabbed young woman in the film. The shower scene required 78 different shots, spliced together with 52 cuts. It’s impressive, really it is. It’s just a little long, and a little self-indulgent. This movie is meant for super-fans and I don’t think I’m one of them.
If you want to be taken through the in-depth process of how the shower scene came together, what kind of vegetable they plunged a knife into to get a realistic flesh sound, what the original storyboard looked like, and hear a bunch of people just talk about how much they like “Psycho,” then great, this is the documentary for you.
If you’re on the fence about it, I might suggest waiting until this film gets broken into more digestible chunks and floats onto your Facebook feed someday.
“78/52” is playing at the Pickford all week.
